German Program Welcomes 65 High School Students to Campus for German Day
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On the sunny and crisp autumn morning on Sept. 27, 2023, the German and Scandinavian (GSS) Program at the University of Massachusetts Amherst welcomed 65 high school students and their German teachers to campus for a fun-filled day of campus exploration and German activities.
The event included high school students and teachers from Massachusetts schools in Canton, North Andover, and Nashoba Regional, as well as New Hampshire's Conval High School, all of whom arrived on campus after long journeys from Boston and the surrounding areas.
GSS Program Director Sara Jackson, Undergraduate Program Director Kerstin Mueller Dembling, and iSTEP Director Julia Feldhaus greeted the visitors with opening remarks and a light breakfast.
After the refreshments, students, and teachers geared up for a packed program, including a German-focused campus tour with a stop at the Berlin Wall, hands-on STEM activities, games, and meet-and-greet sessions with German faculty, graduate, and undergraduate students.
In the program activities, the visitors exchanged opinions about the best Haribo gummy bears and Lindt chocolates at various taste-testing stations. Our future global engineers attempted to build the highest spaghetti towers. Students also played quick improvisation games with our graduate students and talked to GSS undergraduate students about studying abroad and internships in Germany.
GSS undergraduate majors, students from the iSTEP program, and graduate students excelled as expert ambassadors for the German program, the German language, and cultures. They volunteered their time, leading tours across campus, greeting the buses as they arrived, sharing their experience about study abroad and internship options in Germany, and facilitating the activities. GSS could not have done it without their tireless help.
The event was made possible by the German Program and its event sponsors: the College of Humanities and Fine Arts (HFA), the Languages, Literatures, and Cultures Department (LLC), the American Association of Teachers of German (AATG), and the German Consulate Boston. The German and Scandinavian Program received compliments and praise for the well-planned and executed German Day - an outpour of appreciation we would like to share with all the supporters and helping hands that made German Day at UMass a success. Ein ganz herzliches Dankeschön an alle!